I visited the park yesterday and took a ride on Boomerang. I couldn't be more happy that it's leaving; it felt worse now than it has ever been.

Being my nerdy self, I stopped on the Boardwalk and took a look in and around the Boomerang area, and it really isn't much space. Knott's really has to get creative to install some large new coaster. As much as I think a B&M Hyper would be perfect for the park, I could see one of those mini B&M Dive Coasters (Krake, Baron 1898, Oblivion the Black Hole) being a more plausible addition.

Regardless, I'm just stoked that Boomerang is outta here. That park is not losing anything from it's lineup (they still have a shuttle coaster, a ride with a cobra roll, and two rides with vertical loops), and it has lived a long life. Even if the park puts in more family rides, at least Boomerang is gone.

Just a couple of photos from today:Somebody in the arcade under Iron Reef confirmed they were working on the VR Showdown in Ghosttown and would open in AprilThe large $5 people dryer at the exit of the Bigfoot Rapids has been replaced with a Trading Post. The footing a going in for restaurant near Sky CabinConcrete station work for Sol Spin

Earlier this week TPR was invited to Knott's Berry Farm to preview the new VR Showdown in Ghost Town experience located in the Boardwalk Arcade (underneath Iron Reef.)

This new installation is a 3-minute experience featuring dynamic difficulty scaling to ensure players are constantly challenged, but not overwhelmed. It ties into pre-existing Knott's lore of Professor Welles' Time Machine, and captures the likeness of iconic building from Knott's Ghost Town. Cedar Fair collaborated with VRstudios to bring this first permanent VR installation to life, and as many folks may be wondering, this is operated by the Games department and not the Rides/Attractions team. We were told that the introductory price point would be $6; a very reasonable price for the experience. Although this is an upcharge experience, I believe this price point is justified. The closest comparison at Knott's Berry Farm for this new activity would be the midway carnival games. Most of those games cost between $3-$5 and the experience lasts from 10 seconds - 1 minute. Compared to the 3-minute experience of VR Showdown in Ghost Town $6 price point, this is Cleary the better value (for now). Depending on demand after the experience opens on April 1st, 2017, the price may rise.

A friend and I experienced the game twice during the preview. After our first round, we received a few tips from the game designers on how to maximize your score:-All "enemies" that you try to eliminate with a VR gun will be highlighted in red or green.-Each time you are hit by an enemy, your score will decrease.-In the VR environment, there are boxes and barrels you can hide behind in order to avoid being hit by the enemy. "Using levels", or crouching/kneeling in the environment will help you avoid being hit. -Keep moving in the environment to avoid being hit by the enemy.

After our second try, we certainly felt more accomplished with a deeper understanding of the game objective.

We highly recommend giving this latest Knott's Berry Farm experience a try (especially at the introductory price)! More details will chronicled in the next post below. Please enjoy a few pictures from our experience and watch for our report later this week from the 2017 Knott's Boysenberry Festival Tasting Preview, as well as our live tweeting taking place for the opening day of the festival on April 1st! Thank you to the Knott's PR team for inviting us to participate in this awesome preview!

Tucked away in the back of the park underneath Iron Reef is the home of the new VR Showdown in Ghost Town.

Located in an arcade, this is considered to be part of the Games department.

This check-in area will give backstory and instructions to the players.

8 pods can accommodate two players at a time. Two pods (for a total of 4 players), live in the same VR environment and in a somewhat co-op environment, attempt to save the Ghost Town.

The inside of each pod consists of a minimal set up. A shelf is provided for participants to store their personal items, and also stores the VR headset, headphones and game guns. Cleaning supplies for these items are also visible, which is a nice visual for the Sheldon Coopers of the world.

The carpet in the middle of the pod gives participants a tactile cue to let them know where the VR game boundary is, and adds to blue grid that shows itself in the headset if you stray too close to the boundary line.

Eight overhead capture cameras are used in each pod.

The Games team member put on your headset and headphones after a bit of instructions.

When in doubt, shoot!

At the end of the three minutes, the team member will give you a physical cue to stand still so they can assist you in removing the VR components.

Again, a big thank you to the Knott's team for inviting us to experience this great new offering! VR Showdown in Ghost Town opens on April 1st, 2017.

Background information: VR Showdown in Ghost Town is the result of a creative collaboration between Cedar Fair, Knott's Berry Farm, and VRstudios with weekly syncs across 6 months of development effort from VRstudios' internal development team.

The game was designed and developed specifically for VRstudios' custom hardware platform, which includes incredibly accurate positional tracking sensors, a proprietary, wireless VR HMD, and a custom gun peripheral.

The installation features design work and theming from Knott's hardware and décor teams to theme the entire user experience as a time travel adventure, including a themed pre-show video and scenic decoration throughout the VR play space.

Beyond the standard VRstudios hardware, the gun peripheral has been modified specifically for the VR Showdown installation to match the gun model in the experience and to heighten immersion. These modification also helps provide a seamless transition from reality to virtual reality.

The Knott's installation includes 8 capture spaces of roughly 20'x17' with 2 users playing simultaneously in each space. No consumer VR platform allows multiple users to move around this large of a play space, and without the limitation of cables connecting users to the PCs, players are free to move around each other and the space to take advantage of the full-motion nature of the system.

Players are encouraged to move around the room to dodge incoming enemy projectiles and pick up useful power-ups, and there are both physical hardware indications and virtual software barriers that indicate to players the limits of their physical play space.

Up to 2 capture spaces are networked together to allow anywhere from 1 to 4 players to play together in a single game instance.

The hardware is designed for out-of-home use and features custom, premium VR equipment that is cost-prohibitive for consumers, hygienic materials and cleaning procedures to ensure every user has a clean experience, and easy operational procedures to maximize throughput.

The game was developed in Unreal Engine 4 utilizing Oculus Spatial Audio and Wwise audio middleware.

Experience Details: VR Showdown in Ghost Town is a 3-minute experience with intense gameplay, cinematic moments, and a dramatic finale.

The experience features dynamic difficulty scaling to ensure players are constantly challenged, but not overwhelmed.

The experience ties into pre-existing Knott's lore of Professor Welles' Time Machine, and captures the likeness of iconic building from Knott's Ghost Town.

Enemies: Melee enemies spawn around the town and run towards the players. When they get onto the train platform that the players are standing on, they activate their lightning clubs and charge at players. Every time the melee robot's lightning club hits a player, they lose points, so players must dodge incoming attacks or shoot the robots before they get the chance to swing.

Ranged enemies spawn around town in strategic locations an fire plasma shots at the players. They must charge up their gun and only fire every few seconds, but there are many of them and bullets fly at the players in all directions. Players must dodge out of the way of incoming range projectiles, or risk getting hit and losing points.

Melee and ranged enemies take 2 shots anywhere on their robot bodies or 1 headshot to destroy.

There are 2 Mini-Bosses in the game that are leaders of the robot army. They have distinct colors, unique props, and clear objectives to destroy certain building of Calico. Player must show the mini-boss robots before they cause damage to the town. The quicker players destroy the mini-boss robots, the more of the town they will save.

The robots have also commandeered Steam Engine 41 in an effort to destroy the bank and expose the safe. The robots run the train too hot nd create a time distortion as the train stems into town. The train explodes through the time distortion and players must dodge debris flying off the train. Every time a plyers is hit by a piece of debris, thy lose points, so they must dodge or shoot the debris to avoid getting hit.

The boss robot appears at the end of every Showdown mission. He is Professor Calek's secret weapon and controls a tractor beam that pulls the safe towards a portal. Players must destroy the boss robot before he steals the safe.

Score: Individual and team scores are calculated based on player performance at destroying robots, and saving the town.

Players are given a ranking based on their relative performance to other team's scores in each sector.

There is an in-game leaderboard trakcing top scores for each sector that is visible before and after each experience in the VR lobby.

I suspect that the Sky Cabin will also be removed soon, possibly at the same time as Boomerang. After the problems back in December the park is stuck in the same position it was in with Windseeker. Either come up with an evacuation method which is acceptable to the state or they will never be allowed to reopen the ride. Also if I remember correctly the original location for Windseeker was as a replacement for the Sky Cabin.

The problem is that planning a major expansion takes several years, so unless it has been planned to use the space where the Sky Cabin is located it is unlikely that it would be a part of whatever will be replacing boomerang. I have to agree with everyone who thinks this is likely to be a B&M Dive coaster.

kenban wrote:I suspect that the Sky Cabin will also be removed soon, possibly at the same time as Boomerang. After the problems back in December the park is stuck in the same position it was in with Windseeker. Either come up with an evacuation method which is acceptable to the state or they will never be allowed to reopen the ride. Also if I remember correctly the original location for Windseeker was as a replacement for the Sky Cabin.

The problem is that planning a major expansion takes several years, so unless it has been planned to use the space where the Sky Cabin is located it is unlikely that it would be a part of whatever will be replacing boomerang. I have to agree with everyone who thinks this is likely to be a B&M Dive coaster.

Looking at a satellite map, Sky Cabin and Boomerang are next to each other, so I do feel that Sky Cabin will be getting removed as well

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